Greetings one and all and welcome to this week's edition of Laura's Links. It has been hot, hot, hot here in southern Ontario - or as one of my kids once quipped: schmoiling. No, it's not a real Yiddish word but it probably should be. Anyway, as I mentioned previously, the absolutely glorious sunshine has given us lots of outdoor time and lots of outdoor pool time, which has been completely fabulous. So instead of going heavy duty political or Jewy Jewy this week, I thought I would just paint a general picture of the nice, summery things that have been going on and then point you toward a few pieces that I don't want you to miss as you sift through the big bog of links below. ~ There's a lot of "regulars" at the pool that we go to. It's ...

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If you missed this week's Clubland Q&A, here's the action replay...

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Mark takes questions from Steyn Club members around the planet...

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A generation ago, before my life and my health were consumed by litigation without end, I wrote two international bestsellers - one was principally on demography, and the other on debt. Neither is what publishers back then would have called a "sexy" subject, so I am grateful that large numbers of readers bought both books. But credit where it's due: I did happen to pick the two topics that, if you reside almost anywhere in the western world, are determining your future right now...

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The strange and still unexplained attempted assassination of the Republican presidential candidate...

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For Bastille Day, France's fête nationale, something suitably Gallic for Mark's chanson de la semaine...

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Today is the first anniversary of the shooting of the Republican presidential candidate while on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania...

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Rick McGinnis on a Barbara Stanwyck classic...

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Mark counts down a cavalcade of Non-Stop Number Ones down the decades and enjoys a sextet of Franco Sinatra, even if the French gets a bit iffy. Plus Zorba the Greek meets the washerwomen of Portugal...

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Tourism ads from Quebec and Afghanistan...

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If you're swimming in Germany, beware of predatory redhead hausfraus...

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Who owes one million dollars now?

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Today's episode was filmed live on the Mark Steyn Iberian Cruise with three of our special guests: Sammy Woodhouse, Samantha Smith and Allison Pearson...

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~Welcome to Part Seven of our seventy-second audio entertainment in Tales for Our Time. This summer, we're enjoying Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Fran, a New Mexico Steyn Clubber, followed in Josh's footsteps of yesterday: Wow, I just binged on the same! This tale reminds me of Kipling's narrative style a bit, perhaps because of the exotic setting. Thank you, Fran. I would say Kipling's and Conrad's narrative styles differ considerably, but to a contemporary listener, who knows. You'll find eight years' worth a of our Tales archived here, in handy easy-to-access Netflix-style tile format. (Oh, and we do poetry, too.) And, if you've missed the beginning of Heart of Darkness, you can start fresh with Part One and, like Fran, have a ...

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Thank you for all your kind comments upon our seventy-second Tale for Our Time. There are two ways to enjoy our audio adventures: you can tune in nightly, twenty minutes before you lower your lamp - or you can save them up for a good old binge-listen. Josh, a Massachusetts Steyn Clubber, preferred the latter: I binged episodes 2-5 on a brisk walk through a languid early morning. Not exactly "Africa hot", as Neil Simon described it in Biloxi Blues, but steamy enough to give a tangible sense of Marlow's early steps in the Dark Continent. I also think of Kipling's "Road to Mandalay" on such mornings, when "the dawn comes up like thunder outer [Swampscott] 'crost the Bay!" What an extraordinary book, too long since read. And a fascinating ...

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Programming note: Tomorrow, Wednesday, at 3pm North American Eastern (8pm British Summer Time), I hope to be here for another edition of our Clubland Q&A, taking questions from Mark Steyn Club listeners around the world. Hope you can swing by. ~Our summer Tale for Our Time, and the seventy-second of our Steyn Club audio adventures, is my serialisation of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's classic of 1899. In tonight's episode, our protagonist finds his fellow Europeans both absurd and disturbing: I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this station, these men ...

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Here we go with Part Four of our brand new Tale for Our Time - my summertime serialisation of Joseph Conrad's classic of 1899, Heart of Darkness. We always get lots of compliments on our Tales, but we also have eagle-eared listeners alert for every minor solecism, and sometimes even before we get to the audio and are still on the accompanying graphic. Last night, a Georgia member of The Mark Steyn Club was ready to pounce: I was all primed to complain if the obviously French or Russian warship (the bizarre tumblehome and military masts give it away) in the illustration was supposed to be British or American in the text. But I was cheated out of the chance to be obnoxious and pedantic! Good work. Excellent attention to detail. We know our ...

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Welcome to Part Three of Mark's serialisation of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad...

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Welcome to Part Two of Heart of Darkness, our summer audio adventure in Tales for Our Time...

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Welcome to the seventy-second audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time...

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Welcome to the seventy-first audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time...

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A remote fantastical kingdom far from Europe's chancelleries of power... An unpopular monarch on the eve of his coronation... A ruling class of plotters and would-be usurpers... ...and a gentleman adventurer on holiday. No, not Ruritania in the nineteenth century, but the United Kingdom in the twenty-first...

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